


Snips and snails and puppy-dogs' tails

by blithesea



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Babysitting Barba, Fluff, M/M, Sappy, Sappy Fluff, fluffy sap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 10:37:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3893242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithesea/pseuds/blithesea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A night of Carisi being helpful, Barba being dense and Olivia being conveniently away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snips and snails and puppy-dogs' tails

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wordhouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordhouse/gifts), [headbuttingbears](https://archiveofourown.org/users/headbuttingbears/gifts).



> As always, my cookie did fabulous beta and talked me through the worst kinks. Thank you. <3 
> 
> Warning: This is so fluffy and sweet it may give you cavities. Proceed at your own risk.

Barba didn't really want to wake up.

His mind still felt muffled, ready to go back under, but there was a crick in his neck and a TV set softly blaring and someone's elbow poking his stomach. He started opening his eyes. Squinted. There was gray light coming in from the window, dawn fast approaching. Where the hell was he?

Then it started coming back to him. Olivia's place. The crick in his neck was from Olivia's couch. The TV, Olivia's TV, was still going because Carisi had switched it on earlier. And the elbow poking him...

He looked down carefully, not quite sure how to parse what he was seeing. Carisi was sprawled on the couch, half on top of him. Head resting on Barba's shoulder. What?

How had he gotten into this again?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had all started with picking up the phone late on a Friday night.

"You know, you have an uncanny knack of always calling at the least convenient moment? Okay, Liv, shoot. Where's the fire?"

"Mr Barba?"

The voice on the other end of the line was so unfamiliar that Barba was struck dumb for a moment. Who would be calling him from Olivia's home number? Wild scenarios began unspooling in his mind. Kidnappers? Paramedics? Old lady down the hall? He had only seen her twice in his life, and she had always seemed vaguely disapproving somehow, so what...

"This is Lucy, Olivia's nanny--"

Oh.

"I'm sorry to call you this late, but, there's been, my mom's been in an accident, and I have to, Olivia is at that conference in New Mexico and I, I can't reach anyone else on the list, can you come over, watch Noah tonight? Right now?"

She sounded close to tears. Barba sighed and quietly kissed his night off goodbye.

"Okay. Calm down. I'll be over in ten minutes."

Lucy was desperate to leave and see her mother in the hospital when he arrived, so they only went over the most basic things. Noah already bathed and asleep in his bed, check. Baby food in the kitchen, baby juice near the fridge, emergency numbers by the phone, check, check and check. Olivia called seconds after Lucy left and he managed to convince her that everything would be fine until she came home in the morning. He tried not to let on that he'd had a good look at that list of emergency numbers she had prepared for the nanny and his name was _ridiculously_ far down. After Munch, even after Carisi, whom she had only known for what, six months? But that was a conversation for another day.

If people could be classified in degrees of baby-friendliness, the top being those wiz-dads who seemed to be changing diapers with one hand, baking gluten-free cookies with another and reading their young ones indigenous, non-violent folk tales at the same time, Barba knew that he wouldn't rate very high on the scale. Still, he never thought himself to be at the bottom of the barrel, either. He distinctly remembered instances of being in the same room with babies without them breaking into tears, thank you very much. Even held one once and did not drop it on its head. So, to spend one night on Olivia's couch with a sleeping kid in the other room? Piece of cake.

This wasn't how he had imagined his night off, but there were worse ways to spend his time, Barba mused after he had installed himself on the couch, lazily surfing through the TV channels, a bowl of crackers in his lap. He had left all his files at home and his phone was quiet for once, so this was almost like a little holiday. An unfamiliar couch, someone else's snacks. The only thing missing was a mini-bar. Barba knew Olivia would offer him a drink if she were there, but at that moment he was too lazy to get up and search for one himself. He very nearly dozed off for a bit.

Then the phone rang, a loud and angry tone, and Barba couldn't locate it at first. Disentangled himself from the couch while it rang and rang, spilled crackers on the floor. Crap. Stumbled over to where the shrilling noise came from, stepped on a squealing toy. Double crap. Yanked up the receiver, already pissed off at the person on the other end of the line. Who in their right mind called this late?

"Hello?"

"Sorry, I must have gotten the wrong... Barba? Is that you?"

"Yes, who is this?" Barba barked out the words, but only half payed attention to the reply. Was there a baby starting to cry in the other room?

"… think Olivia called me, but I was in class, airplane mode. Everything okay?"

Definitely a baby's wail, getting louder now. Barba gritted his teeth.

"Yes, thank you. I'm taking care of Noah tonight, everything is under control," he lied curtly, craning his neck toward the bedroom door. Completely closed, he couldn't see a thing, but the wailing seemed to be getting louder.

"You sure? Because I was just..."

"Actually, in a bit of a hurry now, thank you for calling. Good night."

He dropped the phone back onto the cradle and sprinted towards the bedroom, nearly tripping over another toy on the way. Noah was sitting up in his crib when Barba flipped on the light, eyes filled with tears, hiccuping.

"Hey," Barba said, and Noah looked at him, wide-eyed and scared. "Hey, no, you know me. I've been here before, with your mom. Remember?"

"Mommy?"

Barba hadn't actually heard Noah speak before, it gave him a feeling of reassurance. If the kid could talk, he could be talked to, as well. Talking was Barba's thing.

"Mommy isn't here right now," he said. When Noah's face threatened to screw up into tears again, he hurried to add, "But she'll be back very soon, and in the meantime, I'm here. I'll be right outside. So you can, you know. Just go back to sleep again."

Noah blinked at him. Barba blinked back. This situation was a bit bizarre, but at least Noah had stopped crying.

"You just go back to sleep now," he repeated and took a couple of steps towards the bed, which seemed to be a mistake, because Noah shrank back and started crying again.

"Oh no, shhhhhh. Shhhhhhhh, it's all right. I'm a nice person. Really," he said, feeling stupid and helpless in the face of this kid's tears. He squatted down next to the crib, making shushing noises until Noah calmed down a bit.

"Here, how about this? Look, it's your kitty." He held out the stuffed toy, made a meeowing noise. At least that got Noah's attention, so he did it again, only this time he made the kitty bark like a dog, and Noah giggled. Barba smiled. Entertaining children turned out a lot like entertaining adults. Nothing beat making a fool of yourself.

"So now you're ready to go to sleep, right?" he said, pulling the sheets back over Noah's legs. Noah pushed them off again, and for a few moments they went back and forth, a game Noah seemed to be content to play all night.

"Stop it, no. Stop that. Not funny," he said when Noah started to giggle again. When Barba leaned in to get better leverage, he caught a whiff of... something quite awful. Good lord. No wonder the kid hadn't been able to sleep in that smell.

"I guess you need a change," Barba sighed. He had actually hoped Noah might sleep through the night and let his mother be the first to deal with his stink bombs in the morning. But there was nothing for it now. In for a penny... Besides, Barba had graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law. He was quite sure he would be able to deal with a couple of diaper changes in the next few hours.

A squalling kid and a few gag-inducing minutes later, Barba was forced to reconsider that position.

Where did all that shit come from, what the hell had they been feeding this baby, elephant snacks? Barba was very tempted to turn on the bathroom tap and just hold Noah's behind under it until the foul mess was washed away, but in the end he managed with what felt like an entire box of wet wipes. He then proceeded to wreck several diapers; the sticky bits clung to his fingers, his shirt, each other, but not to the diaper parts they were supposed to stick to. He was cursing under his breath and composing a scathing letter to the diaper manufacturers in his mind when the door bell rang. The sound made him jerk and rip another diaper in the middle. Scathing letter? Fuck that. He was going to sue those Pampers people for gross incompetence.

Scooping the crying boy up in his arms, he walked to the door, making soft shushing murmurs and hoping against hope that it was not the old neighbor wanting to complain about the noise. Or Child Services.

"Yes, who is it?"

“It's me.”

He knew that voice, and a quick look through the peephole confirmed it. Carisi? Pretty much the last person Barba expected, really. Until he remembered the phone call earlier, that must have been him. Barba frowned, shifted Noah in his arms. At least the kid wasn't crying at full volume anymore. He opened the door.

Carisi had the grace to look a bit sheepish at the intrusion. "Hey... I just, you know. You two doing okay?"

Barba bristled a little at what Carisi left unsaid. "Of course, why wouldn't we be?"

As if to prove his point, Noah stopped crying and leaned his head against Barba's chest. Perfect timing. Bottom of the list, indeed.

"I thought I'd see how you're holding up. I got food." Carisi held out a white plastic bag, and the smell of Chinese takeout actually made Barba's mouth water. Those crackers were a long-gone memory. Could he get away with just taking the bag of food and closing the door in Carisi's face? Maybe if he didn't have Noah on one arm...

As if he had read Barba's thoughts, Carisi marched past him through the door and into the living room, effectively ruining Barba's plans to quickly get rid of him. "This is nice. Want to eat on the couch? I'll get some plates."

Plates? "You don't know where those are," Barba said, just a tiny bit nastily. Carisi didn't know he'd had no idea where Olivia stashed her stuff until Lucy gave him the once-over of the apartment earlier.

"Kitchen would be my first guess," Carisi shrugged, unimpressed by Barba's mood. He went to find plates and utensils, as if he actually owned the place.

"Like we needed him," Barba muttered to Noah, shaking his head. "We were fine before, weren't we?" Noah meeowed in reply.

Carisi was leaning on the kitchen counter, gesturing at Noah's bare bottom. "Shouldn't he be wearing diapers or something?"

Barba considered that if he killed Carisi that very night, babysitting Olivia's toddler would make an excellent alibi.

“Yes, thank you, Detective Obvious,” he snapped. “Actually, we were right in the middle of that when you interrupted. So why don't you just put that food down in the kitchen and get--”

“Want me to do it?” Carisi asked, all wide-eyed innocence. “I do it for my sisters' and cousins' babies all the time.”

As if Barba couldn't see through that obvious ploy to show him up. Next Carisi would be searching the kitchen for gluten-free flour.

“No, Noah and I can manage,” he declared, marching them both back to the nursery. He finally succeeded in wrestling some diapers onto the kid, and it only took him two and a half more tries. Ha.

Meanwhile, Carisi had put the food onto plates, drinks into glasses, and even got Noah a sippy cup with some juice in it. Barba was too busy shoveling _la mian_ and _gongbao jiding_ into his own mouth and balancing the little boy on his knees to thank him for it, but Carisi seemed content enough to sit there and talk about mindless things like night school, casework and other white noise. He didn't seem to be eating much, but Barba was happy to do it for him. Babysitting was hard and hungry work. A direct question snapped him out of his MSG-induced haze.

“Want me to hold him for a bit?”

“No. Noah doesn't like strangers,” he replied, mouth full of crispy chicken. “You'll scar him for life. Actually, now would be a good time for you to--”

“Just for a minute.” Carisi made a grab for the toddler, and Noah actually went willingly, smiling and laughing when Carisi started bouncing him on his knees. Little traitor. Carisi was smiling, too, and making horrible cooing baby noises. Barba felt offended on Noah's behalf.

“Don't do that,” he demanded, polishing off the last of the fried rice. “You'll stunt his speech development. He's a child, not a dog.”

“Don't listen to Mr Grumpypants,” Carisi told Noah, and Barba nearly spluttered rice everywhere with indignation. “He doesn't mean it, really. He's a soft marshmallow underneath, yes. he. is.” He was poking Noah's belly with every word, and Noah was giggling at the playful tickling.

“Alright, that's enough!” Barba ordered, and all but snatched Noah from Carisi's stupid knees. “Time for bed!”

That idea sailed about as smoothly as a lead duck, but Barba wouldn't be swayed by Carisi's pleading or Noah's tears. He'd had decades of practice with weepy witnesses and blubbering defendants, he wasn't going to be impressed by displays of sentiment now.

Except Noah kept crying when Barba put him down. And wouldn't stop, not when Barba heaped stuffed toys around him, did the animal voices again, even hummed a bit of an old lullaby he remembered his _abuelita_ singing to him. As soon as he got up and made motions to leave, the crying got louder, a hint of desperation creeping in. Barba sighed, and leaned back down to pick Noah up. He tried not to feel too gratified when Noah snuffled a little and finally stopped.

“There,” Barba murmured, patting Noah's back. “You're not really upset, you're just better with company. No wonder you and Carisi get along.”

“I'm just good with kids,” Carisi chimed in helpfully from behind, which made Barba nearly jump out of his skin. Damned cops and their sneaking-up ways. If he had dropped Noah in shock, that would have been all Carisi's fault, too.

“Must be your mental age,” Barba grumbled. What was Carisi even still doing there? Probably trying to curry favor with Olivia by volunteering to babysit the boss's kid. Well, if Carisi was going to take credit for Barba's heavy lifting, he'd have to do much more than bounce the boy on his knees for a few minutes.

Barba took Noah back into the living room with him and sat down on the couch, letting the little boy curl up in his lap. Enough crying for one night. If Noah only calmed down when he was being held, Barba would hold him until Olivia came home and pried the kid out of his arms by force. God, he would make a terrible parent, he thought tiredly, closing his eyes. Emotionally blackmailed by an 18-month-old. No wonder the nanny had called half of Manhattan before settling for him.

The couch dipped down with Carisi's weight. Barba heard him switch on the TV, flip through the channels. Nothing but reruns of the nightly news and old movies at this hour.

“Carisi, why are you still here, exactly?” he asked, feeling Noah's breathing slow down. The kid was drooling on his favorite shirt, but Barba was willing to let that slide if it meant Noah was finally going to sleep. "Olivia won't be back before tomorrow."

Carisi shrugged, picked up the upended bowl of crackers, and started to munch. “Nothing better to do, I guess.”

“You're kidding.” Barba narrowed his eyes at Carisi. Who was apparently really into those crackers. He didn't look up. “Friday night, and you're telling me you have nothing better to do than get takeout and watch me watch Liv's boy?”

Carisi shrugged again, still intent on that bowl of crackers. The man seemed to have swallowed his tongue, an unusual circumstance that was giving Barba pause. Usually it took at least a gag order to shut Carisi up. What was wrong with him, was he sick? Yawning, Barba checked him over more closely, noticing that the tips of his ears were an exaggerated shade of pink. Other than that he seemed like the same old Carisi. Hair too full of product, shirt unassuming and rumpled. The only thing missing was that incessant jabbering.

And his hands. Barba looked a little closer. Carisi's hands were never this still, normally. They went into full Italian when he talked, flapping this way and that. They were gripping the bowl right now, almost white-knuckling it. The hell?

Carisi cleared his throat in the silence, coughed, and finally replied to a question Barba had almost forgotten he had asked. “Not really. No.”

Barba frowned, struggling to digest this. He was sure that there was something he was missing here, something he should pick up on, but it had been a long day with strange and unusual challenges and as a consequence he really wasn't on top of his game. Carisi seemed to be waiting for him to say something. But what?

Maybe he needed to rest his eyes a little more. Just for a moment. Just until the knot of thoughts in his mind unravelled on its own.

Next thing he knew, it was morning and Carisi was using him as a pillow.

His mind still distinctly muddled, Barba began to squirm away. He was too hot and his back twinged and his arm was asleep from Carisi's dead weight. At first he tried to be careful not to wake Carisi up. Who needed that can of worms opened first thing in the morning? But Carisi wasn't helping, actually moved in closer, gaining two inches for every one Barba managed to put between them. Sighed in his sleep, and pressed his face against Barba's neck. Murmured something unintelligible.

Okay.

Maybe he was dreaming about being with his girlfriend. Which, if Barba was being entirely honest, seemed a bit unlikely. Unless Carisi liked his girlfriends big-nosed, flat-chested and with a lot of stubble. But, hey. Different strokes, and all that.

Did Carisi even have a girlfriend?

Barba's train of thought came to a screeching halt when Carisi sat up, yawned. Looked at him with eyes tiny with sleep. And smiled.

“Hey, you.”

And leaned in.

Barba saw it happen almost in slow motion. Carisi's face coming closer. Eyes closing again, mouth half-opened. He was vaguely distracted by Carisi's hand coming to rest on his neck, fingers splaying through the short hair at his nape. But between the time Carisi moved in and the moment their lips actually touched stretched a small eternity. A man could have built a house in the span of that time. Composed an opera. Toured the world. Or simply moved out of the way.

Barba was surprised to find that he didn't.

He should have leaned the other way. Pushed Carisi off to prevent this train wreck in the making, because that's what it was; no good could possibly come of this, _ever_. Only as far as early morning kisses went, it was pretty nice. Carisi's lips were soft and insistent, his body transformed from a block of granite to something pliant and alive, moving in even closer than he already was, and warm, so warm, as if he was planning to melt Barba down by sheer proximity. And it seemed to be working; Barba was definitely starting to feel the heat. Among other things. Fuck. He tried to be subtle about moving away from Carisi's morning hardness, shift his hips slightly out of direct contact at least, but there was nowhere left to go, what with the couch swallowing him on one side and Carisi pouring himself onto him on the other. So Barba wriggled his hand between them, settled on Carisi's chest and pushed.

"What are you doing?"

It didn't take anything else to break the spell.

Carisi's eyes opened, widened, and Barba could see panic flickering on in them like fluorescent lighting, like the words had flipped a switch.

Then everything was happening too quickly, as if someone had realized that time had been accidentally set to slow-motion and hit the fast-forward button to make up for it. Carisi struggled off the couch, painfully digging his knee into Barba's side, swayed beside it until he got his bearings, ran his hands through the crumpled mess of his hair. He seemed to be looking down at Barba, but Barba couldn't catch his eyes even for a second.

“It's late," Carisi mumbled hastily, "Early, I mean; I better, uh...”

He gestured wildly towards the exit, walked, almost ran two steps to pick up his jacket hanging from the rocking chair, and was at the door before Barba could do more than blink.

"No, wait..."

Whatever objections Barba had on the tip of his tongue -- _don't go, I didn't mean it like that, don't be stupid, where the hell did that come from?_ \-- the door banged shut before he could spit out even one of them.

Cursing under his breath, Barba started to free himself from the couch's embrace and stood up, scratching the back of his head, trying to think. What on earth had that been all about? Carisi had been... What? Sleep-addled? Unable to tell that he wasn't actually cuddling up with his significant other? No. Nobody was _that_ confused. And right before they had kissed, Carisi had looked at him. Really looked at him. He hadn't mistaken Barba for anyone else.

Which shed a completely different (if slightly alarming) light on the previous night. It seemed less and less likely now that Carisi had just come over because he thought Barba couldn't handle one single night of baby-sitting. Or even just out of his ever-present desire to help. But what... Barba shook his head, trying to clear it. Hell, he could really do with some coffee right now. There was something else niggling at the back of his mind, pushing Carisi into the background, something he was supposed to remember...

Oh, right! Noah. Noah was nowhere to be seen! Had he walked off while Barba and Carisi were conked out on the couch? Was he even big enough to walk yet? Barba couldn't help a small sigh of relief when he checked the nursery and saw Noah lying peacefully in his crib. Losing him would severely have crimped the glowing impression he wanted Olivia to take away from his impromptu babysitting skills. Noah was sleeping like a log now, and someone had pulled up the covers around him as well. That must have been Carisi, putting Noah to bed properly while Barba was out like a light.

Maybe Olivia's babysitter-listing order wasn't as _completely_ ludicrous as he'd thought, after all. Not that he would ever admit to this. Out loud. To actual living human beings. Unless he was under oath and threatened with perjury, Barba decided while he walked back into the kitchen to put away his and Carisi's used plates.

He was surprised by the sound of keys in the door.

"Hey," Olivia said, a little breathless, as if she had run all the way from Albuquerque. "I caught an earlier flight. Everything okay here?"

"Yes, fine. We're all fine here," he replied, nodding towards the nursery. It didn't matter what he said now anyway, Olivia would not be satisfied until she saw with her own eyes that Noah hadn't run away in the night or been sold to a zoo.

While Olivia was checking in on Noah, Barba busied himself with throwing out the remains of the takeout, but despite the mechanical work, his thoughts were an untidy jumble, and he didn't like it. All right, what were the facts?

One, Carisi had been called by Lucy to sit Noah, but had not picked up the phone.

Two, when Carisi had followed up on that phone call, Barba had told him in no uncertain terms that his services were not needed that night.

Three, Carisi had come over anyway, and picked up food on the way. Mountains of food. Of which he had failed to eat any.

Four, Carisi had been given the chance to leave without loss of face multiple times, Barba was sure of it. He had all but shoved the man towards the door at some point. Still Carisi had stayed.

Five, Carisi had fallen asleep next to Barba on the couch, neglecting to seize yet another perfect chance for a semi-graceful retreat.

Six, Carisi had woken up, seen Barba, smiled, and kissed him.

Surely there had to be a pattern in all of that somewhere?

He was yanked out of his musings when Olivia came back into the kitchen, smiling. "He's sleeping like an angel. You two must have had lots of fun together."

Barba snorted. "You don't know the half of it. Getting that kid to sleep was a truly Herculean feat. I should be commended for some kind of medal."

Too bad no one had been there to witness his amazing child-care chops. No one but Carisi, anyway.

"I'll get one especially minted," Olivia teased as she started to help him flatten the take-away boxes.

"That's a lot of food... Did you have a date over to help you babysit? Make most of a night with the grown-ups out of the way?"

"Yes, actually. If you had come home a bit earlier, you'd have caught us necking on the couch," Barba deadpanned.

He only felt a tiny twinge of guilt when she laughed.

And then it hit him. Why Carisi had come over and acted like a moon-calf all night. Good lord, how could he have been so dense?

Vaguely aware that Olivia was talking about something concerning coffee, Barba quickly started rolling down his shirt-sleeves.

"Listen, I gotta go," he interrupted her apologetically, struggling into his jacket. Did he have Carisi's phone number saved? Maybe his PA did... He had promised never to call her on a Saturday, but this was an emergency.

"It's been a slice," he kissed Olivia's cheek, wondering if the precinct might give him Carisi's number. And his address, if he played his cards right?

"And Liv, if you ever need me to sit your baby again..."

She raised her eyebrows at him, smirking. "Yeah?"

"Call me as soon as he's been potty-trained."

 

 

_fin._

 

 

 


End file.
